The accessibility of podcast shownotes is important, but forgotten by most podcasters. Learn how to make short, easy-to-use URLs with Pretty Link for each of your podcast episodes.

Don’t make it hard for your listeners

You have heard many podcasters—or maybe even yourself—say, “Get the links in the shownotes at mypodcast.com.” That may seem all right, but what if they’re listening to an old episode? Many podcasters will at least mention the episode number, “Get the links in the shownotes for episode 35 at mypodcast.com,” but they still aren’t making it easy for listeners!

Subdomains are not effective

Subdomains are supposed to be a segregated section of a website (like testing.mypodcast.com), or a completely different website that is a member of a main site (like most of the WordPress.com or BlogSpot.com sites). Using subdomains as redirects (redirecting visitors from one place to another) can be effective for technical, back-end stuff (like making media.mypodcast.com redirect to your separate media server), but I recommend against basic redirects.

Unless your website server is setup right, visitors may have problems visiting your subdomain. Do you know how many people still type “http://” or “www.”? Will your subdomain work if “www.” is prepended?

Keep your complicated URL …

… but simplify with Pretty Link

Never speak your long URL; no one will remember it. Instead, make short, easy-to-remember URLs with free Pretty Link (Lite Version) plugin for WordPress. If you run only one podcast on one website, then this is easy to setup.

When writing the blog post for your shownotes, click Get Shortlink. This button will not be visible until either you have saved a draft or published.

Copy the URL, which will be your domain with “/?p=” and a number appended. This is the absolute URL to your post and it never changes, even when you rename your post or change the permalink.

Access either Pretty Link Quick Add from your WordPress Dashboard, or Pretty Link > Add New Link in the lower-left.

Paste the shortlink into Target URL.

Type something short into Pretty Link. If you’re running a single podcast on your website, then I recommend the super-simple method of a number (1, 15, 130, etc.).

The title and description fields can be left blank, but the title will be automatically pulled from the post title.

If you URL parameters (the stuff following a question mark in a URL, such as “?utm_source=tap024&utm_medium=Tweet&utm_campaign=tap024”) for advanced Google Analytics or anything else, you must turn on Parameter Forwarding in the Link Options for every Pretty Link.

Click Create.

Do this for all of your podcast episodes, and your listeners can easily get to your shownotes by typing in mypodcast.com/24.

Why you should upgrade to Pretty Link Pro

While Pretty Link offers “Lite Version” for free, there are some great benefits to upgrading to Pretty Link Pro, which I do recommend.

Skip almost all of the above steps by enabling Create Pretty Links for Posts in Pretty Link > Pro Options > Page and Post Options. This creates a new widget in your Edit Post page where you can create a Pretty Link without leaving the page or copying anything!

Under these same options, you can enable Automatically post to Twitter when a Post is published.

Pretty Link > Pro Options > Twitter Options inserts a Tweet badge in your posts, making it easy for people to share your post and use the shortened URL.

You can also display Twitter comments, and links to other social sharing services.

Pretty Link Pro is $37 for a single site, or $97 for unlimited sites. I purchased it for Noodle.mx and I’ve been very happy with how much time it saves me.

What about networks?

This is all easy if you run a single podcast on your WordPress blog. However, this may not work if you have a network, as I do.

Each of my podcasts has its own domain and I tell listeners of those shows to access the shownotes through that podcast’s domain and episode number: “TheAudacitytoPodcast.com/23,” “theRamenNoodle.com/56,” and “AreYouJustWatching.com/ir13” (the “ir” is because I run two different kinds of episodes for that podcast). If you want a similar solution for your podcast network, then the best way for you to do that is to hire me to set it up for you. Once I set it up, then I can show you a simple formula that varies only slightly from the above steps, but works for all of your separate shows with their own domains. After I set it up for you, you wouldn’t need my help again until you add a new podcast to your network.

But I won’t keep it a secret. The way to accomplish this is by redirecting your separate domains to categories on your site; using regular expressions (a way to search and replace information based on formulas) to add several rules to your .htaccess file, either directly or through a plugin; adding more rules to account for one-, two-, and three-digit numbers; and changing your Pretty Link URL patterns. Sound complicated? It is, so that’s why you should hire me to do it for you! Price depends on how many podcasts and how many episodes you have. Email feedback@TheAudacitytoPodcast.com to request a quote.

Disclosure

This post may contain links to products or services with which I have an affiliate relationship and
may receive compensation from your actions through such links. However, I don't let that corrupt my perspective and I don't
recommend only affiliates.

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